Everything We Know About Assassin’s Creed 3

A new main character is coming with the next entry into the Assassin’s Creed series, and with him a new era in the world history will be explored by players who like to do their stabbing. Assassin’s Creed 3 is almost upon us, and we’re here with everything we’ve discovered about the game as a primer for you before you grab the game.

So without further adieu: welcome to the American Revolution.

The Story and Setting

Last time, on Assassin’s Creed, old protagonist Ezio found a map that revealed the locations of several of the powerful Pieces of Eden around the world. These are objects being chased down by the Templars, the evil organization at which the Assassins, the protagonist organization, are at war. The Templars want to use these objects to control the world, but it seems as though there’s something bigger and more world-ending on the horizon, about which we’ve only seen hints.

Anyway, jumping back into the ancestral time machine/experience reliving machine called the Animus is main character Desmond, who will now be experiencing the ancestral memories of a man called Connor, who lived through the American Revolution. Connor is a half-English, half-Mohawk man who became a member of the Assassins during the war, and the story will take players through a number of important events in history. The game will supposedly span about 30 years, both before and after the revolution, from 1753 to 1783.

Connor’s going to be an interesting character with a lot of nuances, from the sounds of things. His Native American heritage is going to put him at odds with the European settlers who make up the American colonists, and at the same time, it sounds as though he’ll be drawn to the colonists’ fight for freedom. But primarily he’ll be hunting the Templars, as is always the case in Assassin’s Creed games, so expect him to be skirting the conflict and potentially taking out targets in both red and blue uniforms. For the most part, though, it seems he’s on the side of the burgeoning United States of America.

Not Just Cities

We’ve seen that Connor’s adventures will take him through famous American places, such as Boston, New York and Philadelphia. They should be fully available to explore (and climb), if the scale of previous AC games is any indication. You’ll also, for the first time, be able to transition between interiors and exteriors seamlessly while fleeing — namely, you’ll be able to hop through open windows into buildings, and then hop back out of the room from another exit, in order to give people the slip.

Another big change: forests. You’ll be exploring not only colonial towns, but also the American frontier. It seems that Connor will spend a lot of time scaling and crossing between trees in the woods, often to come down on (British) soldiers from above. Exploring landscapes that don’t include buildings will be a big part of the game, from what we’ve seen, however.

Moves and Capabilities

Assassin’s Creed 3 decks out Connor with abilities we haven’t seen before in AC games. First and foremost, Connor’s free-run abilities have been augmented, allowing him to move through windows and into and out of buildings for the first time while on the run. He should be quicker and more adept than Ezio, for starters, able to mantle things like merchant’s stands in different ways depending on the situation. Expect more motion in general out of Connor as he moves around. You’ll also see a lot more interplay between trees and structures.

It seems that Ubisoft is remixing a lot of Assassin’s Creed standbys to make them a bit more dynamic. Diving off a tower into a hay cart, for example, is made a touch more interesting because you’ll now see a lot more hay carts being pulled through the streets by horses. That means moving targets for your descents.

Blending, one of the game’s chief mechanics, also is getting a rework in Assassin’s Creed 3. Now when you stop by a group of characters in order to pretend to be a part of the group and not running around stabbing folks, you’ll engage them in conversations, which will help you seem less shady. Expect that mechanic to require player input to work, so you’ll have to pay attention to what’s going on.

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